I bought that iPhone, headed home to the ‘States for some R&R and completely forgot about this little blog that had just started to attract a little traffic way back in July. Or so it seemed. No, I got home and I thought about posting and then I didn’t. I came back to Japan and thought about posting, but still abstained.

Weeks and weeks went by and I realized a few things. First, I neither have the time (blah blah blah, I know) nor the expertise to write about technology like I thought I wanted to. If you really go back and look at my past entries, a lot of it was just me complaining about things there were out of my control (Softbank, 10.5.3, etc.). Really useless stuff. Second, I’m not really passionate about that anyway. Sure, I really really like my iPhone and my Mac. I like discussing technology and software. It’s fun. It’s a hobby. But I’m only passionate about it to a point. And there are plenty of sites on the web dedicated to tech– too many to name, really. This blog, as it was yesterday, was redundant.

So today, I’m trying something new.

As you may have guessed, if you a.) know me, or b.) were an avid reader here (hah!)– I am currently learning Japanese. I’m… on an offensive, so to speak. That’s where the new name comes from. I’m on an offensive against the Japanese language. This blog is the new headquarters of the JLO– the Japanese Language Offensive. I want to strike hard and fast, where it hurts, and by writing about my success and my failures here, on this blog, I hope to help people who are currently knee deep in their own version of my theatre– whether it be at college, in class, in Japan, at home wanting to read manga, whatever. Everyday, some idiot sucker like myself decides “Hey, I’ma gonna learn that moonspeak!” Nine times out of ten, like me, the reason is usually something along the lines of “I like manga/anime/Jporn/Jwomen, etc.” Sure, there are other reasons to learn Japanese, but only really rare or boring people decide (from the beginning!) that they want to say, study ancient haiku (which is practically a different language anyway, really) or translate Genji again. Those things take dedication. And if you’re like me, you probably lack dedication. Which is OK. You can still learn Japanese. Yes, the road will be long and hard, but eventually, even a real screw up like myself can make inroads in this god-forsaken language.*

So that’s the reason for the sea change.

If you’re interested in games and technology, go read Engadget or Cnet or something. If you want to know the real story behind learning how to understand that porno you’ve got sitting around (you know the one, where the two adolescent looking girls in sailor outfits are, well, yeah– you know) then keep your eyes peeled. I’ve been studying Japanese for 4 years now (on and off, 3 of those years in higher education) and only now am I finally really coming to terms with all the mistakes I made and all the time I wasted.

Welcome to the JLO, private Nancypants.

(Note: All previous entries will remain for the sake of people linking to them, reading the Brujipedia/DL2 review, etc. That stuff (at least for the moment) remains useful for people randomly searching Google and whatnot.)

* Let’s get one thing straight too, while we’re at it… Yes, you can learn the language. The real question, however, is “Should you?” I’ll cover this in a post sometime this week. The answer might surprise you. (Har, har. Clever, I know.)